Computing devices have become widely available in recent years. Examples of computing devices are laptops, tablets and smart phones. Typically a wide variety of software and/or applications are implemented on the computing devices. The most prevalent software is web-based browsers that offer access to the internet and all of the content sources available via the Internet (e.g., website). The content items available via web-based browsers and the Internet is, for example, news (e.g., local newspaper/news stations, BBC™, CNN™, etc.), blogs (e.g., personal or business commentary), social media (e.g., FACEBOOK™, TWITTER™, MYSPACE™, etc.), informational websites (e.g., WIKIPEDIA™, HOWSTUFFWORKS™) and on-line retail (e.g., AMAZON™, OVERSTOCK™, EBAY™ etc.). The content items on these websites may be direct contributions from a business and, in some cases, comments submitted by visitors to the business website. Other website content items may be from multiple contributors (e.g., articles on a news website) or from an individual contributor (e.g., blogs). These websites often offer comment sections for readers to comment on the content items (e.g., new stories, products, blogs). Social media websites offer subscribers an interactive way to share information and photos.
Businesses may implement software to measure traffic on their business website. The software may measure the number of visits to their business website, the links within the business website that a visitor accesses, time spent on the business website or the types of advertisements that load on the business website, for example. The measurement of website traffic is useful to marketers wanting to measure the effects of an advertising campaign, for example. The measurement of website traffic may also provide useful information to a business owner for implementing improvements to their business website. For example, a business may have recently implemented a new print media marketing campaign or have several news stories associated with the business. In the timeframe of the start of the campaign or the news stories the business website traffic may change (e.g., increase or decrease). Based the website traffic changes, the marketers may infer that the print campaign or the news stories caused the website traffic change.
However, while the information from measuring traffic on a website is useful, there is no direct correlation to content items on other content sources (e.g., social media sites, blogs, retail websites, etc). Many of the content sources described above have millions of subscribers or readers. The sheer magnitude of information available from these websites for data mining makes the sites described above very valuable to businesses wanting to analyze content items associated with a specific product or topic.